Coloradans say they are embarrassed by politicians, politics and the government — both in the state and in Washington — according to a survey conducted by supporters of a plan to change the states’ electoral process.

“What this poll means is that Coloradans are desperate for a new election system,” coalition director Ryan Ross said.

Political analyst Katy Atkinson disagrees.

“All polls like this mean is that Coloradans don’t like politicians,” Atkinson said. “When it comes to changing the election system or the way people cast their vote, it doesn’t tell us anything.”

The coalition commissioned the poll, conducted in April, to gather data as it launches its ballot initiative that would change the state electoral process. Forty percent of responders picked “embarrassed” and 37 percent “critical” as the word that best summarizes how they feel about the government and politics; 25 percent believe that the statehouse and the U.S. Congress are not effective at all, and 26 percent point to the political parties as the one thing they would change.

“People are dissatisfied,” retired Colorado College political science professor Bob Loevy said. “But to be fair, polls like this are your chance to take a negative shot at the government without the chance to get someone you like less in office.”

Loevy said that discontent often runs higher in a tougher economy and around a president’s sixth year in office.

Atkinson echoed Loevy’s thoughts but said that the Obama administration has come under even more criticism.

“I think people thought with this president that the world was going to change, but it hasn’t,” Atkinson said. “So it is more than your standard six-year itch.”

The data gathered are helping fuel the coalition’s proposed ballot initiative that would eliminate political party-based primaries and advance the three candidates who received the most votes and anyone who had 3 percent, regardless of party.

The initiative needs 86,105 signatures by Aug. 1 to be on the ballot in November.

Ninety-six percent of those polled were registered voters.

Loevy described the initiative as a “potpourri” of previous ideas, which usually fail.

“I would pronounce that it is a very long, long shot,” Loevy said of the proposal.

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